Main reason I ask is because Chillindude, a prominent member of the competitive Melee community had a stroke recently and as he’s relatively healthy and works out often, he doesn’t have health insurance, and even though he’s sponsored by Team Liquid, one of the largest e-sports teams out there, because he is classified as an independent contractor, he doesn’t have health insurance through them.
The way he got the stroke was through an infection in his knee that he got misdiagnosed twice, and the hospital was going to throw him out even because he’s been stabilized, but doesn’t have coverage, which to me is actual BS but I’m honestly curious as to why this would be the case, considering strokes need so much recovery done for them.
Situations like this is part of why I couldn’t write my own thing for the ideal society post I made the other day, because I have no clue how healthcare should be handled. I do know however that portions of why healthcare is so expensive is due to the companies that make the equipment being anti-“Right to Repair” and the actual repair costs of the equipment being outrageous (Louis Rossmann made that a video months ago and I can’t find it), but still, this whole situation is really outrageous to me, that the hospital was going to throw him out after he stabilized due to a lack of proper coverage, and that stroke recovery as a whole is as expensive as it is in the US. I’d love to hear from our European people if it’s really any better there or am I being lied to, but still, idk what the solution really is.
Edit: I’m in the US, so this is pretty important for me to know.
Medical needs two different systems.
There's the emergencies where you don't have the time or wherewithal to choose for yourself and you want licensed doctors that went to medical school, passed the tests, and did the time learning the trade. On the other hand there are slowly developing problems where you have plenty of time and should be able to make informed choices and get potentially deadly medicine from that self-taught guy who hung out a shingle.
There's random things that happen like an asteroid ripping off your arm or defective genes that you shouldn't have to pay for because you had no choice in the matter. There's other problems like from getting fat, not exercising, not brushing teeth that were preventable and you should pay for.
So there's not a single solution because there's two conflicting problems. If the state pays for everything then there's no financial incentive for people not to eat themselves to 500 lbs. If state pays for nothing then people go bankrupt or die from bad luck.
In EU they simply tax unhealthy things, so people can think they're free, while government makes their dietary choices for them.
Recent sugary tax in Poland, that was supposed go towards programs aimed at diabetics and supposedly all it did was cover some costs of needles.
Whether it was needles or if it just got used to get the people in charge richer, at least you can safely say that money went to a bunch of pricks.